This helps to explain the trend in journalism by suggesting that if journalists challenge the false or unsupported claims in their articles, they risk losing readers who believe those claims. Losing readers would also mean losing revenue for the newspaper.

This helps to explain the trend in journalism. If journalists now cover a wider range of topics without having deep knowledge of them, they may not challenge the false or unsupported claims in their articles because they don’t know if those claims are true or false.

This helps to explain the trend. If journalists only hear from people whose views they agree with, they’re less likely to challenge those views in articles. Or, perhaps journalists simply seem sympathetic so that persons supporting controversial views will speak to them.

This does not help to explain the trend in journalism. If debate over controversial issues draws public attention and newspapers presumably want public attention, journalists would be more likely to challenge the truth of the false or unsupported claims quoted in their articles.

This helps to explain the trend in journalism. If journalists who challenge the truth of claims are often criticized, this might make them less likely to continue to openly challenge the truth of the false or unsupported claims quoted in their articles.